4

McGovern: Handing over

 2 years ago
source link: https://lwn.net/Articles/884845/
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
neoserver,ios ssh client

McGovern: Handing over

[Posted February 15, 2022 by corbet]
Neil McGovern announces his departure from the helm of the GNOME Foundation.

GNOME has changed a lot in the last 5 years, and a lot has happened in that time. As a Foundation, we’ve gone from a small team of 3, to employing people to work on marketing, investment in technical frameworks, conference organisation and much more beyond. We’ve become the default desktop on all major Linux distributions. We’ve launched Flathub to help connect application developers directly to their users. We’ve dealt with patent suits, trademarks, and bylaw changes. We’ve moved our entire development platform to GitLab. We released 10 new GNOME releases, GTK 4 and GNOME 40.

(Log in to post comments)

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 16:38 UTC (Tue) by Shiba (guest, #151620) [Link]

By now when there is something I don't like one bit I've grown accustomed to seeing something even worse coming right after, yet I can't say this news makes me sad at all. I guess he still deserves a "thank you for (at least some of) your work", although it's my hardest one...

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 18:21 UTC (Tue) by lfam (subscriber, #127309) [Link]

Wow. Have you ever gotten the advice, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?"

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 21:54 UTC (Tue) by Shiba (guest, #151620) [Link]

It happened yes, if I remember correctly after I left some harsh review for some scam product.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 23:52 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

When that sentence contains the word "nice", it is only fitting advice for small children living fortunate lives.

The version for everyone else needs "constructive" in its place.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 18:41 UTC (Tue) by flussence (subscriber, #85566) [Link]

> We’ve become the default desktop on all major Linux distributions.

GNOME has become the _Internet Explorer_ of Linux desktops.

I dread to find out what the Chrome equivalent will be.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 20:47 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Could you please elaborate? The problem with Internet Explorer wasn't its wide userbase alone. By being insecure and buggy, MSIE had negative effects far beyond its userbase. What's the GNOME problem that a large company would want to fix?

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 0:05 UTC (Wed) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]

It's clear that desktop environments inspire passionate arguments in the Linux community. What I don't think some people understand is how reductive and mean some of the comments can be.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 2:04 UTC (Wed) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

Every time I log into my GNOME-based laptop, I have to futz with pulseaudio and/or pipewire for ~20 minutes to fix the sound. It's a corporate device with a lot of proprietary crap on it, but the same is true of millions of Windows laptops, and you don't hear about this problem there...

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 2:46 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

PulseAudio and PipeWire are not parts of the GNOME project. Whatever problems they have are Linux desktop problems that cannot be solved by replacing GNOME with another desktop environment such as XFCE or KDE.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 3:45 UTC (Wed) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

"X is not part of the Y project" is the reason that proprietary systems are *so much* less painful to use than Linux.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 15:12 UTC (Wed) by zonker (subscriber, #7867) [Link]

That depends entirely on your definition of "pain," really.

Yeah, if you buy a Macbook or something you should expect that sound, etc. are going to "just work." But that comes with a lot of trade-offs if you don't want to do things the Apple way, etc. And are OK with a perfectly functional device going EOL when Apple stops updating macOS for it. And don't mind being limited in options if the device requires a repair, etc... But if you have the money to live in the Apple ecosystem and don't object to its limitations / proprietary-ness, it can certainly be convenient.

In my limited experience the Windows ecosystem can be less painful or a lot more painful than Linux depending.

I hear a lot of complaints about PulseAudio, etc. and I believe that some users definitely run into problems. I haven't, myself, run into very many issues -- and that's having run Fedora and RHEL desktops as well as PopOS and others. I expect there are lots of users who use these things quite happily without issue. I've never been clear if the problem(s) are of trying to do things that weren't use cases they expected or hardware related or what. It seems like they do pretty well with way fewer resources than what Microsoft or Apple likely throw at the problem, though. (Not to mention far less control to dictate things...)

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 8:51 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

> but the same is true of millions of Windows laptops, and you don't hear about this problem there...

That's a bit of a strange comparison. Manufacturers usually test for Windows. They don't test for Linux. As such, the software developers of Windows have a huge advantage.

FWIW, I use Windows as well and it's pretty standard to complain about issues. Except it'll be mentioned as a "laptop" issue, not specifically attributed to Windows.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 11:57 UTC (Wed) by jd (subscriber, #26381) [Link]

By being insecure and buggy, MSIE had negative effects far beyond its userbase.

Insecure and buggy, yes, but more importantly it used a proprietary dialect of HTML, broke with standards and (through monopoly abuse) killed off competition through illegal means. This, too, had a huge impact beyond the userbase. It meant many websites broke on other browsers and were thus unusable on other systems.

This included sites that were "mandatory training", government websites, etc. In some places, this meant you couldn't get well-paid jobs or claim benefits except by using one specific browser on one specific operating system.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 20:47 UTC (Tue) by eharris (guest, #144549) [Link]

Yup...credit to the departing for their efforts!
Pity that (in my opinion) GNOME3 is an abortion!
Once upon a time GNOME2 was pretty and useful.
So...in 2022, the popular UI here at Linux Mansions is.....XFCE!!!

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 20:54 UTC (Tue) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]

Well this discussion is going downhill fast. Getting things back on track, I've used GNOME for nearly twenty years. With tweaks and add-ons, it suits me quite well. I'm thankful for GNOME, and for the other desktop environments.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 21:43 UTC (Tue) by bartoc (subscriber, #124262) [Link]

Yeah, I've started to really grow used to gnome, and prefer it strongly to windows or mac nowadays. Even without any addons (my workflow tends to revolve around using search to launch apps, I don't need an applications menu or anything).

I have small gripes, like the on screen keyboard not being that good, or the lack of pen input support (this is actually really hard to do well, so I don't blame them, Windows is _wayyyyyy_ ahead here because of efforts with early convertible pen-tablets). Also in vertical orientations the icons in the activity menu become rather too small imo.

I've found Gtk3 and 4 to be pleasant development environments too (and gnome-builder is really sweet)

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 2:42 UTC (Wed) by jebba (✭ supporter ✭, #4439) [Link]

By default I set up XFCE for desktop users as it is lightest and most straightforward. The most requested desktop I get is for Gnome, followed by a few KDE requests. So from my real-world experience, most users choose Gnome, fwiw. So they've done a good job there. I use Openbox on my own workstations.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 21:54 UTC (Tue) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]

GNOME's a much-loved and useful desktop environment with a long pedigree of satisfaction rooted in conservative simplicity and configurability. It's just that it hasn't been called GNOME for many years and what inherited the name largely rejected what made GNOME much-loved.

MATE, you are a welcome friend from the start to the close of my computing day.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 4:20 UTC (Wed) by atai (subscriber, #10977) [Link]

GNOME2 lives in the form of ... Mate. So there is really nothing to complain.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 4:58 UTC (Wed) by mgb (guest, #3226) [Link]

GNOME3 is not to my taste but McGovern did a good job leading a project which provides one of many alternatives that is in fact to the taste of many people.

Not at all like the embrace, extend, and extinguish zealots.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 12:04 UTC (Wed) by jd (subscriber, #26381) [Link]

The thing about Linux GUIs is that you can swap GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment or any of the others (I used to love OpenLook) so that the system worked the way you thought and the way you liked. You were never forced to change to suit the system, the system changed to suit you.

GNOME3, like all the other options, had strengths and weaknesses. Which is a Good Thing, because the only way to have a codebase do everything well is to have a codebase that is the superset of all possible features. Which would be big. Because GNOME3 differed so much from GNOME2, it was best to treat it as a different option rather than an upgrade to an existing one. That's fine, GNOME2 was forked so continued, and the ecosystem grew more diverse and the greater for it.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 21:47 UTC (Tue) by engla (guest, #47454) [Link]

Gnome has really become nice and simple to use. We've been using Ubuntu 20.04 at work quite successfully (LTS release). Right now it comes with a distro package of Linux 5.13 if anyone is curious.

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 7:44 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

THIS is what worries me. As someone who took an early dislike to Gnome, I really don't like how it's pretty much elbowed everything else out.

One size does NOT fit all, if all you have is hammer then everything is a nail, and if you only know one toolset your choice of solutions is going to be blinkered by that. WordProcessors are a classic example - pretty much all of them are Word clones, and lots of useful, innovative features from other word processors (WordPerfect, cough cough) are either forgotten or impossible in the Word world view.

Cheers,
Wol

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 8:53 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

> I really don't like how it's pretty much elbowed everything else out.

You could also interpret that GNOME became a default for various distributions as that GNOME did and does something right.

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 10:08 UTC (Wed) by aragilar (subscriber, #122569) [Link]

I wonder how much of that is due to GNOME (and more importantly GTK) being the default in previous releases? For example, Ubuntu has always GNOME as a basis (as far as I know), customised to a greater or lesser extent depending on what's happening in the GNOME ecosystem, but the initial choice of GNOME (and hence the creation of the various DE alternative spins such as Kubuntu, which likely locked in GNOME being the default) happened nearly 20 years ago. Without GNOME being the default then, would it still be the default now (having gone through at least one major change since then)?

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 10:56 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]

Could be a factor. I mostly commented because the initial comment seemed to see the negative in something, instead of assuming usually people mean well. Meaning, instead of saying that others were "elbowed out", figure out a way too see the well intentioned actions behind it.

The "assume people mean well" is something that was once in the simple GNOME CoC. I like referring to it because every time I thought I was crazy to still try the "maybe this person means well" approach it turned out that the person meant well, plus that I was too judgmental, yet again.

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 12:35 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Which is why I try to be objective and not allocate blame. These things happen.

But, for example, SuSE was always a bastion for KDE - that was the default. Then they went agnostic and didn't give you a default. And now, I don't know, do they default to Gnome?

The problem is that if the smaller DEs lose mindshare, they then lose devs, and they fade away. Losing all that was good, which maybe cannot be replaced ...

Cheers,
Wol

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 12:23 UTC (Wed) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

What about Unity ? It was more than a GNOME customization.

the default desktop

Posted Feb 16, 2022 12:18 UTC (Wed) by jd (subscriber, #26381) [Link]

I agree that one size doesn't fit all, and I'm not keen on "defaults". This is Linux, we don't need defaults, the distro installer is more than capable of presenting options since the GUI is not tightly-coupled to any other component - although, I think some distros supply different defaults on different DVDs as an alternative solution.

(I have to admit a level of curiosity as to how practical it would be to abstractly describe a look-and-feel and required features, such that the application could work with any GUI that supplied the necessary tools, rather than be statically built and compiled for one specific version of one specific GUI. This would also make skinning so much easier.)

However, let's be fair, this is an article about someone leaving a team and not the product. And leading a team of any size is damn hard. On that side of things, I think the guy did an amazing job.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 10:57 UTC (Wed) by eduperez (guest, #11232) [Link]

It's so sad to see so many negative comments, about personal experiences or even unrelated projects, in an article about someone leaving a project.
Is this is the right place to complain about pulseaudio / pipewire? Really!?

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 11:44 UTC (Wed) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link]

Thank you Neil for overseeing the massive improvements in UI that there have been in Gnome in the last few years. Investing in user-interface usability testing definitely pays off in user adoption.

But the desktop (Ubuntu 21.10) is still really sluggish compared to Windows 10. Just last night I did my customary suspend for the night with <Win>-s-u-s-p<Enter> and instead of suspending, it continued purring away with an offered game of Sudoku. Ah, well...

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 13:55 UTC (Wed) by brielmj (subscriber, #156441) [Link]

I'm happy that GNOME exists. It provides me a kind of good working desktop with Wayland on a 4K monitor, even on my exotic distribution (GNU Guix: no systemd, not FHS conform). Scaling, fonts etc. work fine at this HiDPI monitor :)

But if you leave wayland/HiDPI aside I have to admit that my "productivity" differs greatly from DE:
sway/i3 > MATE/KDE/XFCE > GNOME3/4
GNOME is okay for some browsing, but I wonder really how to work with multiple windows. They just fly away and you loose the focus, so I have to click very often. Its not as easy as under Windows, sway or MATE/KDE/XFCE to split the monitor for two windows beside each other...

Citing the article:
"We’ve become the default desktop on all major Linux distributions."
I'm not sure if that is positive (financially) for everyone. At work I thought about replacing our openSUSE Leap admin workstations with payed SLED, but the only offer GNOME as a full fledged DE. My colleagues work with Windows and KDE@Leap. I doubt they will be really happy about the GNOME workflow, neither I will...


report

Recommend

About Joyk


Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK